Stanko remains a defiant individualist, a romantic predator of song who … has clinched not just his own place in jazz history but also that of his Polish peers and predecessors – Brian Morton, The Nation, 2005

The trumpet tone … catapults you into reflection – Ben Ratliff, New York Times, 2002

A Concert Tribute to Krzysztof Komeda celebrates the film music of a composer who helped establish Eastern Europe’s underground jazz scene in the late 1950s and who went on to write the haunting scores for some 40 films, including Rosemary’s Baby.

Tomasz Stanko, a Polish trumpeter and composer, and Billy Harper, an American tenor saxophonist, are considered two of the most acclaimed jazz improvisers in the world. Stanko also leads his quartet in performing his own jazz compositions for the Polish cinema. For Stanko, as for other artists living in Communist Poland, jazz represented “freedom, Western culture, a different way of life.” It was performed clandestinely in cellars and at dance parties in cities like Lodz, where students like Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski turned the city’s now-legendary film school into a hotbed of artistic experimentation and political dissent. As a prelude to this special concert, two of Komeda’s best scores can be heard when Polanski’s Knife in the Water and Skolimowski’s Le Départ are screened. Komeda’s scores presented in the film series also include two shorts: Polanski’s The Fat and the Leanand Kijowicz’s animated Banner. The Tomasz Stanko Quartet includes Marcin Wasilewski, piano, Slawomir Kurkiewicz, bass, and Michal Miskiewicz, drums.

This is one of two concerts featured in the Jazz Score series; the other on June 14 features Martial Solal, legendary jazz pianist and composer, whose 40 film scores include Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1959).

The Museum of Modern Art’s Jazz Score (April 16 – September 15), includes a broad representation of Polish films, many featuring the music of Krzysztof Komeda, among other films with music by Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonius Monk, Toru Takemitssu, and Wynton Marsalis; two live performances; and an international gallery exhibition that features Polish posters for films with jazz scores, among many other artifacts.

"The introduction of contemporary jazz to film scoring in the mid-twentieth century brought fresh forms of sophistication and innovation to world cinema. Until the 1950s, jazz had primarily been used in film as atmospheric or incidental music or during show-stopping musical numbers. Jazz Score celebrates the groundbreaking collaborations between filmmakers, composers, and musicians who, by experimenting with new forms and techniques, have radically transformed both art forms – jazz and the cinema – from the 1950s to the present day". (Josh Siegel, curator of Jazz Score)